The Healer

  “Who ordered the coffee that looks like fudge sauce?” Kate asked.

  “Back here,” Lisa replied.

  “That stuff will kill you.”

  “As long as someone else has to do the autopsy,” Lisa said cheerfully.

  Rachel handed the coffee to Lisa and the cold soda to Jennifer.

  Rachel’s pager went off.

  “We’re off duty. All of us,” Kate reminded her.

  Rachel tugged the pager free to see the number. “It’s Adam.”

  Kate turned down the radio as Rachel reached for her phone. She had wondered if Adam would ever use the card. She was surprised— it was at two-thirty on a school day. He should be in class. “Hi, Adam.”

  “You called me back.” He was breathing hard like he had been running, but he didn’t sound like he was crying or scared.

  “Always.” Rachel took the large iced tea Kate handed her and slipped the extra sugar packets into her pocket so she could squeeze the lemon slice.

  “The nurse let me call you after I called Mom.”

  “The nurse’s office, huh?”

  “I got a black eye.”

  “Ouch. Did you get a bloody nose too?”

  “Huge.” He sounded proud of it.

  “Did the nurse give you an ice pack?” He’d gotten hurt somehow and called her after calling his mom for a reason. She was picking up the sounds of a nervous boy.

  “It’s freezing. Would you tell Tim it’s not his fault? He kind of did it. We were playing volleyball in gym class, and the kids were laughing at him. He got mad. He didn’t mean to hit me when he threw the ball.” Adam was rushing his words, trying to protect his friend.

  “Accidents happen all the time. I’ll be glad to talk to Tim. I bet he feels awful about what happened. Would you like me to come by when school gets out?”

  She looked over the seat at Jennifer as she made the offer, trying to decide if she was going to be getting a cab to keep this promise.

  “Please. Mom is coming to get me. Could you kind of smooth things out with her too?”

  “I would be glad to. Why don’t I meet you by the bike rack?”

  “Okay. Tim and I will be there.”

  Rachel hung up the phone.

  “Trouble?” Jennifer asked.

  Rachel put away the phone. “I need to swing by the school. Let me call a cab. I’ll catch up with you guys back at the hotel.”

  “The school is on the way to the hotel. We’ll wait for you,” Jennifer said.

  “Are you sure? You need to get some rest before dinner.”

  Jennifer nodded to Lisa. “I’m resting. Ask my doctor.”

  Lisa smiled at her. “You need to listen to your doctor more.”

  “You need to work on your bedside manner,” Jennifer suggested with laughter.

  “We’ll stop at the school,” Kate decided, the driver settling the matter. Kate’s milk shake arrived. She put it in the cup holder and pulled to the street exit. “Are the streets still one way around the school?” she asked Rachel.

  “Yes. Take Buckley Street to Converse. You’ll avoid the traffic.”

  Rachel shifted her sacks, looking for the one with the gift for Marissa. She’d found the perfect beaded clutch purse for her to take to the prom. “Does anyone see the sack with the wrapping paper?”

  “Back here. Which one is your pleasure?”

  “The gold foil. And a white bow. And somewhere back there is a roll of tape.”

  “Found it.”

  Rachel had small scissors on her keychain. She tugged them out and cut off the tags from the gift. “What do you think?” She held the purse out for Kate to see.

  “Marissa will love it.”

  Rachel slipped it into the tissue paper and back into the small box. “She deserves a great prom.” Rachel wrapped the gift and added a bow. “Park at the ice cream shop. You won’t get stuck in traffic since you can exit with the light.”

  They were a few minutes early. Rachel checked that she had her phone and her pager as Kate parked. “If you see Marissa while I’m over at the middle school, will you get her attention? I won’t be long.”

  “We will.”

  “Do you want to sit out at a table, Jen, or stay in the car?”

  As that question was debated, Rachel got out of the car and leaned against the side, watching the gathering parents. She could see the bike rack at the middle school from here; it was one of the reasons she had suggested that meeting place. She didn’t want to head over too early for the shade wasn’t great and kids had a way of being late coming out, given there were lockers to get to, gym things to collect, and friends to find.

  Kate came around the car to join her. “Remember when you were in high school?”

  “I’m doing my best to forget.”

  Lisa opened the car door and shifted pillows around so Jennifer could stretch out. The high school bell rang. Kids began streaming out. Rachel kept an eye out for Marissa as the high school parking lot became crowded. Then the middle school bell sounded. Rachel watched the growing crowd of kids meeting up with parents until she saw girls from Adam’s class appear. “If I’m going to be more than twenty minutes, I’ll call you,” she told Kate.

  “Tell Adam hi for me.”

  Rachel lifted a hand in acknowledgment and headed toward the middle school.

  Gunshots erupted.

  Seventeen

  Cole listened in on a conference call with family services and the district attorney regarding an arson fire last week while he worked on the department budget. It felt odd to be back at his desk, but he was trying to clear the paperwork.

  “He set his tree house on fire the first time; this time he started a fire in the trash bin behind his apartment building. You can call them accidents as much as you like, but if we don’t pursue charges, we’re going to be unable to stop him before someone gets hurt,” the lawyer with the district attorney’s office weighed in.

  “He’s eight. He needs counseling,” the family services officer protested.

  This was the third call concerning Rusty Vale in the last year. It wouldn’t be the last. Cole revised budget numbers trying to squeeze in another set of wet gear. The flooding had demonstrated they didn’t have as many guys trained as they needed.

  Outside the fire station the long ladder truck warned with tones that it was backing up. It was Tuesday, and on Tuesdays that rig got a full checkout. A sticking valve had been reported, and four guys led by Jack were working the problem. It sounded like they had it resolved.

  “The family refuses to discuss it and I can’t sit by and do nothing.”

  “Captain, do you have an opinion?” The family services officer was looking for help.

  Cole agreed the boy needed help, but he wasn’t sure the counseling she had in mind would be enough. “You said he’s been having trouble at school. He’s going to run afoul of the zero tolerance policy and face expulsion. His parents may be more willing to agree to counseling if faced with the headache of finding a new school.”

  The prosecutor and counselor began discussing the school counselor’s report. Cole leaned back and reached for the fax coming in from the lab on evidence collected Friday.

  “We’ll go back to the parents one more time,” the prosecutor agreed.

  Tones sounded.

  “I’ve got to go, folks. Let’s touch base next week.”

  Cole cut off the call. He reached for his fire coat. They were short handed today as men who had been on full-time flood relief finally got a few days off. Cole was backing up Frank, the other captain on this shift, on the fire runs. He walked into the equipment bay as the huge doors rose.

  “We’ve got a fire alarm at the middle school,” Jack called over.

  Cole swung up on the newly polished ladder truck, praying this was another in a string of false alarms. If Rusty was behind this, the discussion Cole had just listened to was moot. Hundreds of kids, panicked, with smoke filling the halls of the buildings… A fire at a sc
hool was something they all dreaded. It was policy to always roll a full response for a school alarm. “We’ll take the east side; you take the west.”

  Jack nodded and Engine 81 rolled out.

  Eighteen

  Get down!”

  Pain flared through the center of Rachel’s back as Kate shoved her down, knocking them behind a nearby car. Gravel tore into Rachel’s palms and glass bottle fragments on the pavement ripped into the knees of her jeans. Kate landed beside her and reached over to push her head down. Lisa slammed the open doors of their car to hide Jennifer and dove to the ground near them. The screams were terrifying as teenagers in the parking lot tried to get to cover and horrified parents across the street pulled their children to safety.

  “Jen, keep your head down,” Kate ordered, all cop, as she tugged out her sidearm. “Where’s it coming from?” she shouted to Lisa who had better visibility in the other direction.

  A car window in the school parking lot shattered with an explosion of glass. Someone was shooting in the midst of the kids. Rachel wanted to cry.

  “Two o’clock,” Lisa yelled back.

  “Call this in!” Kate ran toward the high school parking lot.

  “I’m calling,” Lisa shouted back.

  Rachel scrambled to the front of the car. Her heart broke as she saw the faces of the terrified kids. Incredible fear was frozen on their faces as they didn’t know which way to run to get out of the way. She recognized the shock. They thought they were invincible, and someone had just ripped away that sense of safety.

  “Marissa!” Rachel saw her stumble as she tried to hurry down the stairs, lose her balance, and tumble down the final six concrete stairs to the ground off the side of the stairs. Rachel wanted so badly to go help her friend.

  The gunshots stopped. For good, for the moment… Rachel couldn’t breathe. Beside Marissa she could see kids in the parking lot on the ground not moving. Oh, God, what do I do?

  Jennifer pushed open the car side door. “Jen, close the door,” Rachel pleaded.

  “Kids are hurt. Get me to the kids.” There was determination in her face and she wasn’t thinking about the danger to herself, just the need. “Lisa, get someone to help carry me. We can both help them.”

  “Not yet,” Rachel urged, “not until Kate has stopped this.” She knew the counsel of the experts on this critical moment. Think about your own safety. Realize if you get hurt, you can’t help and will in fact slow down help getting to victims by becoming one yourself. She couldn’t stand to follow the advice. More gunshots erupted, and this time it sounded like shots and returned shots. Kate would get hurt trying to stop this and they wouldn’t know. Rachel looked back at Lisa. “Stay with Jen. I’m going.” She headed after Kate.

  She could feel herself exposed to the danger, could feel the slowness in her movements as she struggled to hurry. She could feel her heart pounding and her breath coming in short gasps. Kate spent her life doing this, running into danger. She understood why Kate did it, but not how she lived with these moments of fear.

  Rachel passed a blue Chevy with its back passenger door open. A gray Ford had backed into a white Honda and stood abandoned. Under her tennis shoes she could feel the sharp edges of glass from the shattered car windows. Backpacks lay where they had been dropped, spilled books and papers fluttering in the wind. Rachel passed kids crouched down and hiding behind vehicles and memories flashed back to the Colorado holdup years before. The kids were afraid to move for fear they would attract gunfire. She silently pointed back the way she had come.

  Rachel caught up with Kate crouched behind a van.

  “I told you to stay put,” Kate whispered angrily.

  “I couldn’t.”

  Her sister peered around the front of the van again, trying to sort out the scene and find the shooter. “There! Past the blue Lincoln. A school jacket, black jeans. The kid has a crew cut. That’s the first gunman, but there are at least two. Stay here. I mean it.”

  Rachel leaned against the side of the van and struggled to catch her breath. She was halfway to Marissa. Her friend had landed in an awkward angle and it looked as if her leg was broken. She was exposed, and the shooter appeared to be moving in Marissa’s direction. Rachel crept from behind the safety of the van to the sedan in the next row.

  She bit her lip to keep from crying out.

  A boy had been shot in the thigh and lay where he had fallen across a white parking space stripe. He was using his elbows to edge himself toward safety. Before she could move, two of the boy’s friends rushed back toward him to grab and carry him behind the cars. “Pressure,” she called urgently, “put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding.”

  She hurried back the way she had come. “Lisa! Over here.” Rachel waved to attract their attention. Jennifer was out of the car with Lisa and the manager of the ice cream shop helping her. Lisa waved back.

  Rachel caught up with Kate as she crouched behind the car in the handicap parking place.

  Kate looked at her and there was dread in her voice. “The two boys are heading into the high school.”

  Rachel recoiled at what that might mean. They had to stop this, now. “I’m coming with you. I’ve been in the school. I know the layout.”

  Nineteen

  The school building was brick and rough against her back as Rachel leaned against the wall to the east of the front doors. Behind them in the parking lot the screams had been replaced with soft calls for help. Kate was on her phone, trying to raise through dispatch any security officer that might have been assigned to the school.

  Kate pushed her phone into her pocket and looked over at her. “They can’t raise anyone. The wise thing is to wait.” The blare of fire engines and police sirens were coming from all directions through the subdivision as help rushed toward the scene. They were coming to help, but they weren’t here yet.

  Rachel already knew Kate’s decision. “There are innocent kids in there,” she replied softly.

  “Two shooters entered.”

  Kate didn’t want her going in, and yet to stay here would be nearly impossible. “It’s all the more reason to have someone watching your back.” They had to stop the shooters so they could safely help the injured, and it was worth the price that had to be paid. She could help after a tragedy, but for the first time she was in a position to prevent one. Rachel had spent a lifetime desiring to be able to stop some of the pain rather than just help people recover from it. “I’m coming with you, Kate.”

  Her sister looked back at the glass doors. Alarms going off inside the building were making the glass vibrate. “Describe the layout.”

  “The school cafeteria is the center of a large square of hallways. Around the outside of the buildings are classrooms, and lining most of the hallways are rows of lockers. Behind the cafeteria is the kitchen and then the music room.”

  “Stairs?” Kate asked.

  “Immediately on your left and at the middle of the building on your right. Locker rooms and access to the gymnasium complex is on the far left.”

  “Okay.” Kate thought about her plans. “I’m going to open the door and prop it open with a backpack. When I signal, you come through fast. I want you keeping an eye on the stairs. Any kids I point out, your job is to get them out these doors.”

  Rachel prayed she didn’t freeze under fire. It wasn’t the first time she had walked into a shooting, but this time it would be deliberate. Kate was showing her trust by not even objecting.

  Kate reached for one of the numerous abandoned backpacks. She ducked and rushed forward, yanking open the door, dropping the backpack, and darting to the right. When Kate signaled, Rachel rushed after her, the glass door heavy as she squeezed through.

  She flattened herself against the wall beside Kate. The sound of the fire alarm was deafening. The hallway was deserted. Rachel had not been expecting that. Only several dozen open locker doors swinging back and forth suggested this had not been a normal exit of students. Books had spilled out of a coup
le lockers, a wastebasket had been overturned, and there were a couple sodas that had been dropped, the liquid running slowly down the hallway to the lowest point.

  Kate checked the staircase and peered around the first hallway. She pointed Rachel to the first doorway between lockers where there was a little protection. Rachel hurried that way. She passed beneath one of the alarm horns and her ears hurt. School had just been letting out. There had to have been hundreds of people still in this building when the shooting started. It was eerie the way they had vanished.

  Kate tried the doorknobs one by one as they passed rooms. They were locked. Teachers had barricaded themselves and students inside the classrooms.

  Kate pointed across to the cafeteria where a door was still swinging. Rachel nodded. She stayed behind Kate as they crossed the hallway to the doors.

  “Mark, where are you? Come out here, you jerk.” A door slammed. A gunshot hit something metal.

  She gasped. Kate silenced her with a hand across her mouth.

  Rachel leaned against her sister. “I know that voice,” Rachel whispered, horrified. “That’s Greg Sanford.”

  Twenty

  Kate could feel a piece of glass that had worked its way inside her tennis shoe cutting through her sock as she shifted her weight. She grasped Rae’s shoulder, feeling her sister’s tension in the damp shirt. She leaned in so she could be heard. “You recognize the boy speaking?”

  “Greg is Marissa’s prom date. Kate, he’s a good kid.”

  “Who’s got a gun in his hand. Describe him.”

  “Tall, lanky. Blue eyes. Brown hair, wavy. He’s not the crew cut kid you saw in the parking lot. Kate, he fits none of the profiles of a school shooter. He’s been helping take care of his younger brother Tim and little sister Clare; he’s been there for Marissa. You’ve got to figure out a way to negotiate a peaceful ending to this.”